History WesternAnimation / TheHouse2022

* AnAesop: Wealth and materialism aren't going to make you happy. The final chapter also adds the moral that obsessions, even for fairly reasonable things, are unhealthy and sooner or later you'll have to move on.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The Developer's dreams of success end in failure, the House is claimed by the insects and their giant cousins, and the Developer is driven so insane he reverts to animal intelligence. And once again, the House lives on.]]

[[folder: As a whole]]

** In the first segment Van Schoobeek comes in a lit carriage, the parents are hypnotised and corrupted by the electric lights and Mabel and Isobel are drawn to the [[spoiler:light of the fire, that consumes everything]].

*** Isobel: Hebrew for "God's Promise"[[spoiler: who is saved by everyone else from the House's influence to live on.]]

[[folder: Chapter I]]

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler: The awful fate of Raymond and Penny, [[ForcedTransformation transformed into furniture]] and left almost completely paralyzed but still conscious enough to be aware of their plight. In the end, they can't escape the fire that Raymond has accidentally set... though given their misery, it's doubtful that they'd ever ''want'' to.]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: Given that the transformation and death of Mabel's parents was apparently what Van Schoonbeek wanted all along, then he ends the chapter victorious, escaping without a single repercussion.]]

* DealWithTheDevil: While it’s not clear what Van Schoonbeek really is, he happily offers a lavish mansion to Raymond and his family seemingly without expecting anything in return from them. Too good to be true, indeed, as he and the House eventually corrupts Raymond and Penny into obsession with materialism, reaching its peak by making them burn their treasured belongings and [[spoiler: turning them into furniture, before finally dooming them to burn alive]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Raymond and Penny are completely corrupted by Van Schoonbeek and reduced to furniture before (in all likelihood) being burned alive; Mabel and Isobel are able to escape unharmed, but are left alone in the world, not to mention stranded in the middle of a snowy wilderness with no help in sight. Van Schoonbeek suffers no punishment for his crimes, and worst of all, the house survives the fire long enough to continue to make life a living hell for others in the other two chapters of the story.]]

* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler: In their final moments, the transformed Raymond and Penny finally overcome their corruption and beg for Mabel to save herself and her sister, even opening the window to help their children escape the fire.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The new clothes that Van Schoonbeek designs for Raymond and Penny, which appear to be made from curtains and seat cushions. [[spoiler: In the ending, Raymond and Penny are literally transformed into a chair and a set of drapes, respectively.]]
* ForTheEvulz: Van Schoonbeek seems to be motivated by nothing more than malicious jollies, given that he can blow vast sums of money on building extravagant and possibly eldritch homes in which to torture his clients. [[spoiler: Certainly, he didn't seem to get much out of arranging for the corruption, transformation, and death of Mabel's parents other than cheap laughs.]]

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Van Schoonbeek is last seen chuckling over the transformed Raymond and Penny, satisfied with his handiwork, and by the time Mabel arrives in the room, he's long since vanished without facing any repercussions for his crimes. Even the fire doesn't seem like much of a setback considering the house somehow lingers on despite the damage.]]

* MobileMaze: Van Schoonbeek constantly redesigns the House, and his carpenters are in a constant process of renovating the place - moving around furniture, building new rooms and corridors, and erecting new walls. Given that this process is somehow accomplished without anyone seeing or hearing it happen, it's a sure sign that something is horribly wrong with the place. [[spoiler: Mabel, Isobel, and Mr. Thomas all end up trapped in the upper floors of the building by the end, driving Thomas to a sobbing meltdown.]]
* {{Objectshifting}}: [[spoiler: In the finale, Van Schoonbeek transforms Raymond and Penny into an armchair and a set of curtains, leaving them barely able to move and fully aware of their plight.]]

* PromotionToParent: [[spoiler: After Raymond and Penny die in the withdrawing room fire, Mabel effectively becomes a parent to her baby sister.]]

[[folder: Chapter II]]

* BigCreepyCrawlies: [[spoiler: As it turns out, the Odd Couple staying in the house are actually human-sized bugs, as is discovered when their extended family welcome the Developer home: on top of sporting additional arms, they proceed to devour the House alive while crawling all over it like cockroaches.]]

* {{Catchphrase}}: The Odd Couple keeps saying “We are extremely interested in your house.” [[spoiler: It turns out they just want to trash and eat the place.]]

* ExtremeOmnivore: [[spoiler: In the climax of the chapter, the invading family of giant insects proceeds to devour almost every single one of the Developer's renovations, consuming the upholstery, the wiring, the carpets, and the furniture.]]

** In the Developer's living quarters (read: the basement) there is a poster for a dental practise on the wall. [[spoiler: His "lover" is later revealed to be his dentist, with the poster likely serving as a basis for his delusion.]]

* NakedNutter: [[spoiler: Having been driven completely insane by his experiences over the course of the episode, the Developer is last seen almost completely naked except for his fur, having clearly chewed through most of his hospital gown at some point during the ending montage.]]

* PoliceAreUseless:[[spoiler: The Developer calls the police to get the Odd Couple out of his house, as he does rightfully own it and they have essentially squatted and taken advantage of him. Unfortunately two officers who come to the door a moment later are only there to issue a warning from his dentist, but they leave in a huff without bothering to listen to his complaint, presumably having written him off as a mentally-ill stalker - though admittedly, the Developer doesn't help his case by acknowledging his harassment. As such, there's no visible response to his actual call to the police, to the point that nobody notices him being removed from the hospital by the accused squatters, or that the horde of people who came in never left and are crawling up walls.]]
* RedRightHand: The Odd Couple; ostensibly, they're anthropomorphic rats like the other characters in the story, but their body shape is quite dissimilar: the male has a squat, wide body, while the female has a long, slender frame with an oddly-segmented bone structure. [[spoiler: It turns out that they're giant versions of the insects infesting the House.]]

* SpiritualAntithesis: The second story is this to the ''{{Film/Creepshow}}'' story "They're Creeping Up on You!" Both are about the main character living in a fancy house while trying to keep it clean for the sake of their work. Both the Developer and Upson Pratt constantly call individuals who grow annoyed at their behavior. Both environments get swarmed by bugs and roaches, from the inside of the walls to the technology installed across the buildings. Even the side characters (The Odd Couple and Mr. White) are symbolically seen as giant bugs. The difference is Mr. Pratt is a rich man living up in a fancy condo, looking down at what he sees as the poor people, while the Developer is a poor rat living in a basement, looking up at the buyers who are his only chance at getting out of his financial problems. And in the end [[spoiler: Mr. Pratt dies from his obsession to rid his home of the bugs, while the Developer accepts the vermin and becomes one of them himself]].
* StraightGay: Possibly. [[spoiler: The main character's offscreen lover is eventually revealed to be a male dentist; assuming that the Developer is actually gay and not just deluded by the House, he has no stereotypical features or mannerisms.]]

[[folder: Chapter III]]
* AnimalMetaphor: What better animal emphasizes the dire situation of living in a flooded world - and the contradiction of surviving in it -- [[CatsHateWater than a cat?]]

* HopeSpot: Towards the end of the chapter, Rosa ''finally'' manages to get some clean water from the tap, allowing her to mix a working batch of wallpaper paste and successfully renovate one of the rooms... and then the OminousFog arrives, ruining the entire room.

* NewAgeRetroHippie: Jen's archetype. She loves meditating, dancing to new age music, has a mellow personality and pays in healing rocks. Her partner Cosmos also fits the bill, being even mellower than Jen and prone to performances of throat-singing and the digeridoo. In a surprising divergence from how the trope is generally presented, however, they are shown to be the most willing to face reality for what it is, [[spoiler: and maturely decide to move on together, encouraging Rosa to follow suit.]]

* SurprisinglyHappyEnding: [[spoiler: After the two previous {{Downer Ending}}s, this one ends on a happy note with Rosa setting off with the other tenants into the floodwaters, using the House as a makeshift boat.]]

* CentralTheme: Obsession, madness, wealth, and the pursuit of true happiness.

* TheConstant: The House, of course, remains present throughout all three segments - in the 19th century, in the 21 century, and in the post-apocalyptic future. It starts out as a lone mansion on a forested hillside, becomes a townhouse in the middle of a city, before finally becoming the only building still above the waterline. [[spoiler: And then it becomes a boat, escaping its foundations to become part of the new seagoing society of this post-apocalyptic world.]]

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler: The awful fate of Raymond and Penny, [[BalefulPolymorph transformed into furniture]] and left almost completely paralyzed but still conscious enough to be aware of their plight. In the end, they can't escape the fire that Raymond has accidentally set... though given their misery, it's doubtful that they'd ever ''want'' to.]]

''The House'' is a 2022 stop-motion animated AnthologyFilm divided into three chapters, each one with its own directors: Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, and Paloma Baeza. It stars Creator/MatthewGoode, Claudie Blakley, Mia Goth, Music/JarvisCocker, Susie Wokoma, Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter, Paul Kaye, and Creator/WillSharpe. It premiered on Creator/{{Netflix}} on January 14, 2022.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: Instead of more typical cockroaches, the pest insects are dermestid beetles (referred to as "fur beetles", all but stated to be what is usually known as carpet beetles).

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Throughout the story, the Developer is on the phone with an apparent lover, often begging for affection from them despite their low opinion of him. [[spoiler: In the climax, it turns out that he's been talking to his ''dentist,'' who is not happy at being constantly harassed by an overfamiliar patient and sends the police to warn him off. For his part, the Developer doesn't even seem to understand why this is a problem.]]

* '''II - Then lost is truth that can't be won:''' In the 21st century, a property developer (who just happens to be an anthropomorphic rat) renovates the house in preparation for display and sale, and with the bank breathing down his neck, begins cutting corners wherever possible. Alas, the developer soon finds that the house has a pest problem that not even his best efforts can get rid of; in the disastrous aftermath of the viewing, the only buyers are a strange couple with a decidedly unhealthy interest in the house...

** In chapter 2, there's a recession on, the supermarket can't get anything right, and the only way to sell a house is to cut corners wherever possible. However, it's not made clear if the rest of the world is like this or if staying in the house has given the developer bad luck, though if the potential customers and the police are of any indication it is a full blown WorldOfJerkass. Furthermore, the House is a bug-infested nightmare where nothing works and the developers efforts to improve it all come to nothing.

* {{Greed}}: A running theme across all three stories. Each character (sans Isobel and Mabel, due to ChildrenAreInnocent) finds themselves focussed on wealth and materialism to some extent or another, eventually becoming an obsession with the House:

* LightIsNotGood: As noted by some reviewers there is a strong light motiff in the series:
** In the first segmnent Van Schoobeek comes in a lit carriage, the parents are hypnotised and corrupted by the electric lights and Mabel and Isobel are drawn to the [[spoiler:light of the fire, that consumes everything]].

* NewAgeRetroHippie: Jen's archetype. She loves meditating, dancing to new age music, has a mellow personality and pays in healing rocks. Her partner Cosmos also fits the bill, being even mellower than Jen and prone to performances of throat-singing and the digeridoo.

* SpiritualAntithesis: The second story is this to the ''{{Film/Creepshow}}'' story "They're Creeping Up on You!" Both are about the main character living in a fancy house while trying to keep it clean for the sake of their work. Both the Developer and Upson Pratt constantly call individuals who grow annoyed at their behavior. Both environments get swarmed by bugs and roaches, from the inside of the walls to the technology installed across the buildings. Even the side characters (The Odd Couple and Mr. White) are symbolically seen as giant bugs. The difference is Mr. Pratt is a rich man living up in a fancy condo, looking down at what he sees as the poor people, while the Developer is a poor rat living in a basement, looking up at the buyers who are his only chance at getting out of his financial problems. And in the end [[spoiler: Mr. Pratt dies from his obsession to rid his home of the bugs, while the Developer accepts the vermin and becomes one of them himself]].

* BigBad: Van Schoonbeek.

''The House'' is a 2022 stop-motion animated AnthologyFilm divided into three chapters, each one with its own director/s: Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, and Paloma Baeza. It stars Creator/MatthewGoode, Claudie Blakley, Mia Goth, Music/JarvisCocker, Susie Wokoma, Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter, Paul Kaye, and Creator/WillSharpe. It premiered on Creator/{{Netflix}} on January 14, 2022.

*** Jen: Welsh for "Fair One," "White and Smooth" and "soft." She's the one Rosa is the most open with in conversation, and is gentle and spiritual in how she tries helping her friend understand what she's doing is hurting herself.

* AnimalMetaphor: What better animal emphasizes the dire situation of living in a flooded world - and the contradiction of surviving in it - than a cat?

* TookALevelInJerkass: As Van Schoonbeek and the House corrupts them, Raymond and Penny grow progressively more neglectful of their children, even snapping angrily at Mabel when she calls their bizarre-looking new clothes "strange." This comes to a head when Raymond callously destroys Mabel's dollhouse simply because he wants something to burn in the fire.

* DistractedByTheSexy: Subverted, The Developer yells at the couple using the bathroom, and stops mid sentence to stare at the naked female member of the two. Later its revealed that he [[spoiler: is possibly gay, if he isn't just deluding himself into thinking his dentist is his wife, or girlfriend.]] This, coupled with the fact that he's middle aged and is staring someone described as ''elderly,'' seems to point to him being more shocked than anything.